Obviously, then, the Matriarchate's attitude was pure paranoia....
They had reached the end of the corridor; the pilot gestured Cendri into a small room, inside the translucent semi-divided screens, and made again the gesture of salute within the Unity, hands clasped before her face. Then, with a smile that made her look, for the first time, like the young girl she actually was, she said, "It has been my honor and pleasure, Scholar Dame, to escort you and conduct you to the Chamber-of-reception-for-honored-guests. I truly hope I shall see you again while you honor Isis with your presence. The Pro-Matriarch Vaniya has been informed of your arrival; if you will be content to rest here and make yourself comfortable, Scholar Dame, she will soon send someone to welcome you. If you desire refreshment—" she indicated a console against the wall, "the control at the top will dispense hot liquids for your pleasure, and the control at the bottom, cold ones. I myself, unfortunately, must return to my assigned duties. Will the Scholar Dame give me leave to go?"
Cendri said, "Certainly, and thank you very much," and the pilot withdrew.
There was no furniture in the Chamber-of-reception-for-important-guests, but a few thick cushions were scattered about the floor, which was covered with a soft rug in neutral colors. Cendri went to examine the screens; she had thought the landscapes were printed on, but they were actually painted, not very skillfully. Behind her Dal said, "Well, how does it feel to be a VIP, Cendri?"
Immediately she was contrite, apologetic. She had almost forgotten Dal! She said hurriedly, "Oh, darling, I'm so sorry. The reception should have been for you—this is awful, isn't it? She was atrociously rude—she treated you like a dog, or something!"
Dal laughed, and Cendri was enormously relieved. They could manage to weather this somehow, if Dal could continue to treat it as a joke. She honestly didn't see how she could endure it otherwise.
"I gather men here are treated pretty much like dogs. Even five hundred years ago on Pioneer, we never branded our women, or made them wear property tags!" He chuckled as he fingered the numbered tag around his neck. "But I suppose a world of women would have to go to extremes."
"They certainly do," Cendri agreed indignantly, "I don't think I'm going to like it here, Dal!"
"Well, that's lucky! I had to take a lot of kidding in the Scholar's Room in the College of Archaeology—saying you'd get to like it, that if I had half a brain I'd never let my wife loose here to see what it was like with women on top... that sort of thing. I told them I trusted you and you were a sensible girl, but just the same—every one of those bastards thought it was funny!" He shook his head, ruefully. "Laughing stock of the whole Department, those last weeks before we left!"
"Oh, Dal, I am sorry—you should have told me—"
"Nothing you could do about it, love. Anyhow, I told them I'd have disguised myself as a woman with plastic what-do-you-callems for a chance to get at the Builder ruins, and sometimes I almost think I meant it," he said, laughing.
Suddenly she remembered. "Dal—the porter, the man in the red baldric—the one who took our luggage; he made some kind of sign at you; a signal, it looked like a password—"
"Oh; that," Dal said, "Yes, I noticed—"
"What did he say? I couldn't hear him?"
"He said, We were not born in chains," Dal told her, "Must be some kind of religious society. Like the Khorists, on Betelgeuse Nine, who greet everybody with Infinity is Peace, remember? Of course, that's more in your line than mine; I don't know much about subcultures and subgroups and things like that." He smiled. "Or, really, give a damn."
"I had thought it might be some kind of male bonding society," she mused, "but it sounds—I wonder if it is some kind of underground, a kind of resistance movement against the government or something like that—"
Dal looked uncomfortable. But he said, "Come off it, Cendri, outfits like that would be secretive; they wouldn't walk up to a perfect stranger and make revolutionary statements at him!"
Cendri frowned; revolutionary statements? Well, she supposed We were not born in chains might be regarded as a revolutionary statement on a world where men literally wore tags or brands and were legally the property of their women. She hadn't thought about it that way. But certainly Dal was right; if it was intended as a revolutionary statement it would hardly have been a greeting to a perfect stranger, let alone someone from another planet!
"I'll need to find out something about how the men live in this society—" she began, then suddenly felt tired and shaky. This was not time to argue. She went to the console and said, "Let's have some drinks. Hot or cold, Dal?"
"Cold," he said, "but you look as if you could use something hot, Cendri. Here, let me get it for you." He installed her on one of the cushions and went to the console.
The control at the top dispensed, in a preformed fibrous cup, a hot liquid which reminded Cendri, as she sipped it, of a hot fruit soup; but it was pleasantly tart, and after sipping about half of it she felt sufficiently revived to feel curious about Dai's cold drink and ask to taste it. It was dark brown and tasted like iced cocoa, but after a small sip she felt so stimulated that she began to wonder what it contained. Caffeine? An amphetamine-like alkaloid? Social drugs varied greatly from world to world.
Dal sat beside her, looking at the painted screens. She looked at the small squarish letters in the corner, saying, "You read the language better than I do; what does it say?"
Dal narrowed his eyes. "The name of the artist, I guess. Yes; Painted by the—students, I guess—of the school for the daughters of fisherwomen. Not much of a painting, but good for schoolgirls, I suppose." He shifted his weight, restlessly. "I wonder how long they're going to keep us waiting? It seems to me this is no treatment for a VIP."
She shrugged. "That depends on what their cultural attitudes are toward time and punctuality. In some societies, we'd already have been kept waiting an inexcusable length of time, and depending on our relative status as VIPs and the status of the one appointed to meet us, our official greeter would abase himself in the dust, or commit suicide with chagrin. On the other extreme, if it's a society with a very loose attitude toward time and punctuality, nobody might get around to remembering us for a couple of days. I suggest we make ourselves comfortable, because we'll have to relax and accept their attitude, whatever it is. That's the first rule for fieldwork in anthropology—find out the society's taboos and attitudes toward time, and just accept them."
Dal scowled angrily. "Damnation, Cendri, I made a casual comment, I didn't ask for a lecture on anthropology!"
"I wasn't lecturing—" Cendri began, then sighed. "Sorry, darling. Habit, I guess."
"It's all right," he said generously, "just remember you're not supposed to be an anthropologist at all, and I don't think the Dame di Velo would know a taboo if it walked up and spat on her!"
Cendri looked at him in amazement. "Don't they give instructions like that in your department? How can anyone possibly get along on any strange world without first knowing their taboos and cultural imperatives?"
"We manage to get along," he said, tight-lipped, and she sighed. "Dal, let's not quarrel. Please."
"It seems to me that you were doing the quarreling," he said, and Cendri bit her lip and didn't answer. There was no point in making him angry. This trip was going to test his forbearance to the uttermost. It was humiliating enough for him to accept an outwardly subordinate position on this trip, and even now he was wearing the collar-tag, locked on and marked with a number which proclaimed him, on this planet, legally her property. She would have to bend over backwards not to add further weight to his humiliation. She leaned again to look at the paintings on the screens, stood up to examine those on the other screen.
Abruptly, it tilted toward her, fell; startled, thrown off balance, she clutched at Dal, and they fell together to the floor, the screen collapsing on top of them. There was a rumble like distant thunder; all over the building she heard cries, the sound of collapsing screens and interior walls. Shocked,
clinging to Dal, she thought; it must be an earthquake! The drink console rocked back and forth, but did not fall; it must be on rollers!
The tremor went on for several seconds; subsided. A little greyish powder sifted from the stone wall of the building, behind the screen, but the exterior walls had withstood the seismic shock; and now Cendri understood the purpose of the screens. Rigid interior walls might collapse, and have to be tediously rebuilt; Dal lifted the collapsed screen off them with one hand.
A young woman with a red baldric tied around one shoulder appeared in the gap left by the collapsed screen. She said quickly, without salutation, "Come with me at once; there may be aftershocks, and the building must be emptied!"
Dal helped Cendri to her feet; Cendri met the amazed stare of the woman with the baldric and moved away from him. They followed her quickly through a corridor cluttered with the fallen screens, some of them splintered and torn; out of the building, and on to a long expanse of vegetation. She said, "You are the Scholar from University?" At Cendri's nod she said quickly, "Forgive my ignorance of diplomatic courtesies, but you must stay here. I must go back and make certain that all the pregnant women and visitors are out of the building. If you will wait here, I will send someone to you as soon as possible." She hurried away, looking backward with a troubled glance.
Dal shook his head in astonishment. "Some welcome to this world! Do you suppose they have this kind of thing very often? You noticed the heavy equipment set on rollers?"
"I noticed," she said. "They seem to have everything ready for earthquakes! I seem to remember—" she frowned; before coming here she had read—quickly, scanning for anything of importance— everything she could find about the settlement of Isis/Cinderella. The planet then known as Cinderella had been considered, for some reason, undesirable for colonization or homesteading. If it was notably seismic, that was completely understandable. Yet it had been the only planet available for the Matriarchate. They seemed to have developed sophisticated methods for dealing with earthquakes—light interior construction, heavy equipment on rollers, and she would be willing to make a guess that they also had taboos about untended fires! Even now she could see flames shooting up from one corner of the building, and people were running and shouting and dragging hoses, mounted on small motorized platforms. The firefighting techniques looked efficient and quick.
Dal whistled in surprise. "Cendri—they are women, fighting the fire!"
"Well, Dal, it is a Matriarchy—"
"But surely, for heavy manual work, dangerous work—" he protested. "Surely men are physically stronger, wouldn't work like that fall naturally to them?"
"I'd have thought so," she said, "but we don't know, yet. I wouldn't comment on it, if I were you."
He said shortly, "I don't suppose anyone would listen if I did."
The women, in thick short protective coats of woven fiber, cut away the torn screens and dragged them to where they could burn out, unattended. There was black smoke which looked as if some electrical fixtures had caught fire, but it was quickly extinguished. Abruptly it was all over; women with smoke-smudged faces coiled up the hoses and trundled away the platforms, and the people who had been sent out of the buildings began to drift back toward them. A few women were still spraying down the open hangar and the shuttleships, to prevent any spray spark from damaging ships or fuel.
Cendri wondered if their luggage was safe; they had brought a great deal of reference material, books, tapes, recording equipment. Ought she to go and see? But when Dal expressed anxiety she hesitated.
"They told us to wait here, they'll send someone for us. Look, I think that must be someone coming now, that woman is pointing at us—see?"
The woman she indicated was one of those who had come last from the burning building; because of their actions and obvious concern Cendri had tentatively identified them as having something to do with the machinery and instrumentation there. She was pointing Cendri and Dal out to a woman in a pale-blue flowered pajama suit, very loose, with a broad-brimmed sun hat and her dark hair in a long braid down her back. The woman spoke to her informant and then began to hurry toward Cendri and Dal. As she came, Cendri could see that the woman was very young—younger than Cendri herself—and that she was heavily pregnant.
She stopped a little way from Cendri, and waited, saying hesitantly, "Scholar Dame Malocq?"
Cendri identified herself noncommittally. Until she knew more about the customs here, she knew it would be a breach of etiquette to do almost anything. It might also be a breach of manners to do nothing, but sins of omission were usually less serious, in most cultures, than sins of commission. Dal, she observed—not having her extensive training in cross-cultural protocol—had already bowed; but the woman's eyes did not rest on him even for a moment.
'
She said, "I am Miranda, third daughter of the Pro-Matriarch Vaniya; my venerable Mother has asked me to come and escort you in person to her country home. As you can see—" she made nervous gesture toward the people jostling around the building, from which a few gouts of smoke were still drifting, "we have had some troubles, and since the quake was felt in the City, too, the Pro-Matriarch was not free to come and greet you herself. She sent me to welcome you, and beg that you will forgive the apparent discourtesy."
Cendri made a formal bow, hands clasped before her face in the manner of the Unity. "The Pro-Matriarch does me too much honor, Lady Miranda."
"Rather, it is you who confer an honor upon us, Scholar Dame," Miranda said. "A conveyance and driver await us at the entrance, if the honored guest will follow me."
Cendri followed her, her brows ridged slightly; something was beginning to puzzle her.
Her manners are too formal. They don't fit what else I've seen here; the absence of uniforms, the haphazard way everything else seems to be run. Yet she welcomed me as if she was familiar with Unity protocol.
She wished she could discuss this with Dal; but the way in which the shuttleship pilot and the Lady Miranda had ignored his existence warned her; too much attention to Dal in public could even endanger her own status. She soothed her guilt, reminding herself to have a good long talk with Dal about it as soon as they were left alone.
Will he even care? He's an archaeologist, he couldn't care less about their social structures and customs... .She thought, suddenly, that it might be a good thing she had been sent here instead of the Dame di Velo, who might not know how to cope with this unusual and delicately structured society. And yet, if it weren't for sheer accident, she would never have been allowed to come here at all. She told herself she should be grateful to Dal for devising the strategem which had brought her here, but instead, for no reason at all, she found herself nursing a resentment so intense that it shook her to the core.
".. .honorable Scholar Dame?"
"I am sorry," Cendri said, recalling herself with an effort. "I fear my mind was wandering; what did you ask me, my Lady?"
"Your Companion—" she did not look at Dal, "may ride with the driver, if it wishes; I trust it is tractable and obedient?"
"Very," said Cendri, and dared not look at Dal.
"Tell it, please, to get into the front compartment with the luggage—" she watched, with amazement, as Dal climbed in without waiting to be told. "It actually understands our language?"
Cendri said dryly, "My Companion, Lady, is a Scholar on University."
Miranda raised her eyebrows in surprise, but made no answer.
The driver was a woman, stout and greying; she wore rough dark clothes. She indicated with a careless gesture that Dal might curl himself up in the seatless hard space next to the gear levers where the luggage had been stacked. Cendri herself was ceremoniously ushered into a box-like interior, well-carpeted and thickly cushioned with pillows and soft textures. It did not seem to Cendri that it would have crowded them unduly to allow Dal to ride inside, but she did not know what taboos this would have violated. She was beginning to feel an immense curiosity, a curiosity so great that s
he could barely restrain herself from asking numberless questions which had nothing whatever to do with her ostensible mission.
Instead she said, as the Lady Miranda settled herself awkwardly among the cushions—she was very pregnant—"I trust the quake did not cause too much damage."
"Very little," Miranda said. "A woman in charge of a painting crew was bruised when a vehicle rocked against a wall, but she made certain none of her charges was injured; a woman in the Communications Room stayed at her post a little too long, broadcasting warnings down the coastline, and inhaled smoke from the electrical fixtures; but she will recover. Another woman was hurt when a trash container fell over on her—I believe her ankle was broken. And of course there are dozens of screens to be recovered and repainted, but that is work for the children of the city, and actually they are always pleased when new screens must be put up in public places, so our school children will be happy."
Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 Page 3
